SENATORS: ANTI-DRUG WAR FAILING

James O`Shea, Chicago TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Thirteen months after the Reagan administration declared an election-year ''war on drugs,'' the government`s $1.7 billion battle to combat drug abuse appears to be heading for a Waterloo, Democratic and Republican senators said Wednesday.

''Little more than a year ago, Congress passed-and the President signed-the most comprehensive drug control legislation ever enacted,'' said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden (D., Del.). ''Overnight, drugs became the hottest political subject in Washington. And just as quickly after the November elections, the drug issue began to fade.''

Biden and some Republican senators, such as Pete Wilson of California, blamed the losing fight against drug abuse on the way the Reagan

administration has managed the program.

At a congressional hearing called to review the drug abuse program authorized in October, 1986, they accused administration officials of sabotaging the anti-drug effort through budget cuts and a ''vacuum of leadership'' in which the nation`s drug abuse problem has grown worse.

''Fewer than 100 days after he signed the 1986 drug bill,'' which raised the nation`s drug-control budget to $3.9 billion, ''the President unveiled a federal budget . . . that cut almost $1 billion from drug control, including $100 million from education, $225 million from state and local law enforcement and $260 million from treatment,'' Biden charged.

Of the money eventually committed to enforcement and treatment programs, much of it remains mired in the federal and state bureaucracies that are supposed to funnel funds to local drug-fighting efforts, Biden and others said.

Chicago, for example, has received a commitment from the state for more than $1 million in drug-abuse enforcement grants under the federal program, but the money had not been received as of October.

Sen. Alfonse D`Amato (R., N.Y.) also criticized state governments for not taking advantage of the funds that were made available by the administration. He said nearly 90 percent of the $162.8 million made available for emergency drug treatment assistance has gone unclaimed, despite waiting lists for treatment of up to two months in some large states.

Biden had invited Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese and Otis Bowen, the secretary of health and human services, to present the administration`s views on what has been accomplished. Meese and Bowen are the chairman and vice chairman of the National Drug Policy Board set up to coordinate the federal government`s drug fighting efforts. Both officials sent aides to the hearing instead.

''The fact that you are here instead of the chairman and vice chairman of the drug policy board is part of the problem,'' Biden told the two aides.